CHAPTER 3 Troubleshooting Hardware and Booting Problems This chapter provides procedures for troubleshooting hardware and booting problems. Although it provides specific procedures for some Cisco products, always refer to your hardware installation and maintenance publication for more detailed information about your specific platform, including descriptions of specific LEDs, configuration information, and additional troubleshooting information. This chapter begins with the following sections on hardware problems: • Cisco 7500 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Cisco 7500 series routers • Cisco 7000 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Cisco 7000 series routers • Cisco 4000 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Cisco 4000 series routers • Cisco 2500 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Cisco 2500 series routers • Catalyst 5000 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Catalyst 5000 series LAN switches • Catalyst 2900 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Catalyst 2900 series LAN switches • Testing and Verifying Replacement Parts—Provides suggested actions when swapping router hardware • Catalyst 6000 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Catalyst 6000 series LAN switches • Cisco 2600 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Cisco 2600 series routers • Cisco 3600 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Cisco 3600 series routers • Catalyst 4000 Series Startup—Describes hardware and boot process troubleshooting for Catalyst 4000 series LAN switches The remaining sections describe symptoms, problems, and solutions for Flash boot, network boot using TFTP, ROM boot, and other bootup problems: • Booting: Router Fails to Boot from Flash Memory • Booting: Vector Error Occurs When Booting from Flash Memory Internetworking Troubleshooting Handbook, Second Edition 1-58705-005-6 3-1 Chapter 3 Troubleshooting Hardware and Booting Problems Booting the Router • Booting: Router Partially Boots from Flash and Displays Boot Prompt • Booting: Router Cannot Network boot from TFTP Server • Booting: Router Cannot Network boot from Another Router • Booting: Timeouts and Out-of-Order Packets Prevent Network booting • Booting: Invalid Routes Prevent Network booting • Booting: Client ARP Requests Timeout During Network boot • Booting: Undefined Load Module Error When Network booting • Booting: Router Hangs After ROM Monitor Initializes • Booting: Router Is Stuck in ROM Monitor Mode • Booting: Scrambled Output When Booting from ROM • Booting: Local Timeouts Occur When Booting from ROM • Booting: Unresponsive Terminal Connection to Unconfigured Access Server Booting the Router Cisco routers can initialize the system (boot) in four ways: • Network boot—Routers can boot from a server using the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP), the DEC Maintenance Operation Protocol (MOP), or the Remote Copy Protocol (RCP) across any of the supported media types (such as Ethernet, Token Ring, Fiber Distributed Data Interface [FDDI], High-Speed Serial Interface [HSSI], and serial lines). • Flash memory—Routers can boot from Flash memory, a nonvolatile storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. • ROM—Routers can boot a system from built-in read-only memory (ROM). • PC Flash memory card—Routers can boot from a removable Flash memory card. This section provides general information about router booting. Network Booting Tips During network booting sessions, routers behave like hosts. They route via proxy Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), Serial Line Address Resolution Protocol (SLARP) information, Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) redirects, or a default gateway. When network booting, routers ignore dynamic routing information, static IP routes, and bridging information. As a result, intermediate routers are responsible for handling ARP and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) requests correctly. For serial and HSSI media, ARP is not used. Before network booting from a server, you should ping the server from the ROM software. If you cannot ping the server, follow the procedures described in the section “Booting: Router Cannot Network boot from TFTP Server,” later in this chapter. If you still cannot ping the server, there is probably a server configuration or hardware problem. Refer to your TFTP server documentation, or contact your technical support representative for assistance. Internetworking Troubleshooting Handbook, Second Edition 3-2 1-58705-005-6 Chapter 3 Troubleshooting Hardware and Booting Problems Booting the Router Fault-Tolerant Boot Strategies Although network booting is useful, network or server failures can make network booting impossible. After you have installed and configured the router’s Flash memory, configure the boot sequence for the router to reduce the impact of a server or network failure. The following order is recommended: 1. Boot an image from Flash memory. 2. Boot an image using a network boot. 3. Boot from a ROM image. The following is an example of how to configure a router with a fault-tolerant boot sequence. goriot# configure terminal Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z. goriot(config)# boot system flash gsxx goriot(config)# boot system gsxx 131.108.1.101 goriot(config)# boot system rom goriot(config)# ^Z goriot# %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console goriot# copy running-config startup-config [ok] goriot# Using this strategy, a router has three sources from which to boot: Flash memory, network boot, and ROM. Providing alternative sources can help to mitigate any failure of the TFTP server or the network. Note The configuration register must be set to allow ROM image booting after failed network booting attempts. For more information, refer to the hardware configuration manual for your platform. Timeouts and Out-of-Order Packets When network booting, a client might need to retransmit requests before receiving a response to an ARP request. These retransmissions can result in timeouts and out-of-order packets. Timeouts (shown as periods in a network booting display) and out-of-order packets (shown as uppercase O’s) do not necessarily prevent a successful network boot. It is acceptable to have either or both timeouts or out-of-order packets occur during the network boot process. The following examples show console output from network booting sessions that were successful even though timeouts and out-of-order packets occurred (exclamation points represent successfully received packets): Booting gs3-bfx from 131.108.1.123: !.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Booting gs3-bfx from 131.108.1.123: !O.O!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If a network boot generates excessive out-of-order packets and timeouts, problems might result. These problems are discussed later in this chapter, in the section “Booting: Timeouts and Out-of-Order Packets Prevent Network booting.” Internetworking Troubleshooting Handbook, Second Edition 1-58705-005-6 3-3 Chapter 3 Troubleshooting Hardware and Booting Problems Troubleshooting Hardware Information for Technical Support If you cannot resolve your booting problem using the procedures outlined in this chapter, collect the following information for your technical support representative: • ROM images. (Use the show version exec command.) • Programmable ROM labels. (This information is printed on the physical chip, and an example is shown in Figure 3-1.) Figure 3-1 An Example of a Boot ROM Label—Boot ROM Version 11.1(2) U30 v11 1(2) RS P2-ROMMON O17-2111-04 Cisco Systems • NVRAM configurations for client and adjacent routers. • Debugging output from adjacent routers using the following privileged exec commands: – debug ip packet – debug arp – debug ip udp – debug tftp For more information about these debug commands, refer to the Debug Command Reference. Troubleshooting Hardware This section discusses procedures for connectivity problems related to booting. It describes specific booting symptoms, the problems that are likely to cause each symptom, and the solutions to those problems. Cisco 7500 Series Startup When you start up a Cisco 7500 series router, the following should occur: • The AC (or DC) OK LED should go on immediately and should remain on as long as the system is receiving power. • The blower should be operating. • The Route Switch Processor (RSP) and front-panel Normal LEDs should go on (to indicate normal system operation) and should remain on during system operation; the CPU Halt LED should remain off. • The Enabled LED on each interface processor should go on (to indicate that the RSP has completed initialization of the interface processor). Internetworking Troubleshooting Handbook, Second Edition 3-4 1-58705-005-6 Chapter 3 Troubleshooting Hardware and Booting Problems Troubleshooting Hardware When the 7500 series system has initialized successfully, the system banner should be displayed on the console screen. If it is not displayed, make sure that the console terminal is properly connected to the RSP console port and that the terminal is set correctly. The system banner should look similar to the following: System Bootstrap, Version 4.6(5), SOFTWARE Copyright (c) 1986-1995 by cisco Systems RSP2 processor with 16384 Kbytes of memory ### [...] ### F3: 2012356+47852+194864 at 0x1000 Restricted Rights Legend Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government is subject to restrictions